


Game Knight

by Anonymous



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Implied Relationships, Paintball, Pre-Relationship, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-12 01:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10478763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “No training today, just a fun little group bonding activity,” said Luche, handing each of them a rifle and ammo packs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> alternative working title:  
> vignette disguised as an opportunity to push my rare pair agenda

If Luche knew his unit (he did; from allergies to Social Security Numbers) then a mass email _letting_ everyone vote for what they wanted to do as a bonding activity outside of the barracks was completely out of the question. For one thing, they never bothered to read their emails if a pay advice wasn't attached. For another, someone, usually Tredd or Crowe, always found a way to steer the discussion towards Nyx's latest case of willful insubordination.  The best plan of action was of course to send a mass text _ordering,_ not asking, everybody to rendezvous at a set of co-ordinates by 1100 hours the next morning.

And to wear the coveralls he'd stuffed into their lockers. 

 

. . .

 

**Somewhere on the Duscae Plains, 1030HRS**

 

Pelna scratched uncomfortably at his collar. "Are these meant to be itchy? Or have they not been washed..."

"I think you forgot hideous." added Nyx, from Pelna's left.

"And tight?" Libertus added beside Nyx, tugging at the material bunching up in the back. "Think I've pulled out my fifth wedgie." Beside him Crowe rolled her eyes.

"Seven." Sonitus muttered in the back row beside Tredd. Axis subtly checked his watch as he slid in line.

"Good. You're all here." Luche rose from where he'd been sitting on two large black plano bins. Behind him stood an abandoned foundry with windows so dusty you couldn’t see through them. He counted off his fingers. "They're new so definitely will be itchy in some places. Your face is hideous, and Libertus--they'd be a lot looser if you lose the tracksuit. It's going to be boiling in the arena, just so you're aware."

Libertus shrugged, unbuttoned his coveralls and started stripping. Someone wolf-whistled, and he struck a pin up pose in response. Luche closed his eyes.

“Doesn’t make sense to set up a foundry in the middle of nowhere…” Nyx muttered to Pelna.

“Assuming it actually is a foundry,” Pelna muttered back.

Flames were licking at the air around Crowe's fists. "So what's the deal, Luche, you got a malboro that needs killing or…"

Tredd, who had been spinning another dagger in between his fingers--Luche was sure he'd confiscated them all--let out a scoff.

"Did you really need ALL of us for that? Why not just send hero over here?"

He nudged Nyx from behind, but Nyx kept his gaze coolly ahead. Holding in a sigh, Luche stuck out his hand for the dagger. Tredd hesitated.

"Fine, keep it. Drop and give me twenty." Luche added, right as he was about to celebrate.

Knowing better than to argue, because Luche loved nothing better than to turn twenty into fifty and fifty to a hundred--Eos knew how these leader types calculated their increments--Tredd tucked the dagger away, and started doing push ups.

"Malboro breath is flammable. We could cause more harm to our team than the actual malboro." said Pelna, side-eyeing Crowe, who threw her hands in the air in exasperation.

"So we just burn the whole warehouse down, who cares? Sometimes it's good to cut the bullshit, Pelna."

"Here we go," Nyx muttered to the sky.

"Fifteen, fourteen..." Tredd panted.

Pelna leaned forward so that he could see past Nyx and Libertus. "If this is about this morning--"

Crowe crossed her arms with a huff, staring stonily ahead. Tredd chuckled through his push-ups, not understanding the context, but still finding the situation amusing.

"Nyx, can you tell Crowe--"

"Nope, not getting involved. Sorry bud." Nyx added, keeping his eyes forward.

"Libertus." Pelna whispered, just as Libertus climbed back into his coveralls in a singlet and boxers.

Libertus straightened, buttoning himself up, tone pompous. "Messer Crowe. Messer Khara would like clarification on-"

"It's not, now _shut up!_ Eos!" Crowe hissed, glaring at Pelna, face slightly red because everyone was staring. Well, except Axis who was watching something on his phone. After a warning glance from Luche, the phone was quickly pocketed.

"One!" declared Tredd, jumping to his feet.

"Says the one throwing the hissy fit," muttered Pelna to Nyx.

"Dude, again: not getting involved."

"Enough chatter. Why are we here?" Libertus asked.

"Yeah. The Commander didn't mention anything about a mission." said Nyx.

"Maybe he did, but you couldn't hear him over your impending court martial," Tredd quipped. Libertus and Crowe caught Nyx before he could take a swipe at him.

Luche, opened the first bin. He reached in, and because Crowe was closest, passed her a mask. She sniffed it experimentally, nose wrinkling a little before she passed it back to Axis. Axis passed it to Tredd who dropped it in front of Nyx, who, after a massive stink-eye on Luche's part, put it on.

"Thermal treated anti fog lenses with a dual layer venting system because I don't want any of you taking these off under any circumstance." said Luche. "Also offers 260° field of vision and...you know what? I don't even know why I bother, just put them on so that I don't get HR jumping up my ass." More masks were tossed out. “Communicators will be switched on at all times. This is also going to double up as a group assessment."

Crowe tucked her hair under her mask, albeit reluctantly. "Just washed it last night," she grumbled.

Luche reached further into the box. Vests, knee pads and armored gloves were all passed around and squeezed into. Once satisfied with his unit's state of dress he kicked open the second crate and pulled out a paintball rifle.

Collective "ohhh..."s followed, as the intention behind today’s exercise became clear.

“No training today, just a fun little group bonding activity,” said Luche, handing each of them a rifle and ammo packs.

“These…aren’t Lucian-made.” said Tredd, after performing a closer inspection of his. He leaned forward to Pelna. “Looks more like Nifl-make, don’t you think? Hey--”

“Yeah…” said Pelna, somewhat distractedly.

“Hel- _lo_? You’re the tactician aren’t you?”

“I said ‘yeah’, didn’t I?” said Pelna, finally turning to him.

"Rules?" Nyx asked.

" _So he can break them_ ," Axis explained to Sonitus.

"Once we're inside everyone finds a hiding spot and waits for the siren to go off. Every man for himself. First to get shot is on scrub duty for a whole month. Last man standing wins an all-expenses paid, two night stay in Galdin Quay."

"Question: does the stay at Galdin include a massage or--"

"Fifty gil to the first person who gets Ulric." said Luche. "Move out!"

  
. . .

 

In a room that had a faded plaque labeling it as 'Control', with an array of LCD screens giving a live feed of different sectors of the ‘foundry’, Luche sat with his feet propped up on a table, a laptop open in front of his lap. Currently the glaive were all posted at different corners, rifles pointed at each other warily in a standoff while they grumbled about the lack of cover. Their weapons would not be activated until the siren went off, and the siren hadn’t gone off yet because of the last minute tweaks Luche needed to input thanks to an unforeseen glitch.

"If I wanted to put myself in a steel box I would have handed my ass to Niflheim on a platter." said Libertus.

" _Still time_ ," signed Axis.

"This place used to serve as a secret Nilfheim base which the Commander acquired before any of us even had baby teeth. With the way the Nifl armies have been progressing…”

“I thought you said this was a ‘group bonding’ exercise.” Nyx said.

Luche ignored him and hit EXECUTE on the laptop.

  
  
. . .

 

The entire foundry came to life-- metal tiles that made up the ceiling, walls and floor beginning to pulsate a soft yellow glow. Interspersed with the sounds of creaking metal, Nyx was certain was the clank and whirr of ancient machine parts, moving and sliding against each other—sluggishly at first, and then faster and faster, as though the foundry were a living thing, rousing itself out of hibernation. There was a flash of white light—‘so cheesy’, Tredd laughed—and then silence.

 

. . .

 

Nyx stared around as his vision adjusted, confusion at being separated from the others quickly morphing into wonder.

“Guys…”

"Everybody else seeing this?" Libertus asked.

“…definitely something Niflheim could cook up.” said Pelna.

"Yeah..." Nyx crouched, removing a glove to run his fingers through grass and dirt that had seemingly sprouted out of nowhere. Luche heard the sound of splashing water and saw someone emerge from the river bank in another screen.

"The water's real guys," said a pleased Tredd, shaking out the excess from his rifle. "Just putting that out there. Coveralls are also waterproof."

“The tech is only half the equation…” said Crowe. She was feeling around for the wall she’d been leaning on before Luche dragged them into this tropical rainforest, but her search quickly turned futile—there didn't seem to be an end to the trees lined haphazardly about, their roots sticking out of the earth.

Not too far from her, Pelna tugged experimentally at a vine, testing its strength. “Thinking about it too much will hurt your brain. Just go with it,” he said, before pulling himself up and out of sight.

“…should take your own advice every once in a while,” Crowe muttered. 

“Crowe, if there’s something you wanna get off your chest—” Libertus started.

“No. Don’t want anyone thinking _too_ much about it.”

Libertus sighed. “Pelna—”

All they heard from Pelna’s end was the sound of the safety being switched off. Not that it made a difference, seeing as their weapons would not be activated until the siren went gone off, but they all got the message, regardless.

In the top right screen, Luche saw Axis and Sonitus bump fists and that brought an unexpected smile to his face. Not even a minute into it and those two had already passed with flying colours. The others would learn soon enough.

One could hope, anyway.

The siren sounded, huge, red digitized numbers materializing over the entire arena, counting down.

“Happy bonding.” Luche announced. He opened the bag of chips he’d brought along for the show and settled in to watch.  It would take a few minutes for the last set of commands to load, but there would be plenty of entertainment until then.

  
  
. . .

 

Tredd fired a second too late after the siren sounded, bright green neon splattering on the branch beside Nyx’s head.

_FUCK!_

He fired off a volley of follow-up shots, but Nyx had already taken off in a sprint in the opposite direction, laughing and flipping him the bird over his shoulder.

“You’re DEAD Ulric!” He slung his rifle onto his back and warped after him to cover lost ground.

In another part of the forest, a fira spell collided with Libertus’ shield, the resulting shockwave sending him flying backward. He scrambled to his feet, bright purple paint spitting up dirt and gravel right on his heels, and pressed himself against the nearest tree.

“CHICKENSHIT!” Crowe yelled.

A second barrage of fire spells destroyed the tree, forcing him out of hiding. She charged after him like she was Ifrit-incarnate, shooting with one hand and scorching potential hiding places ahead of him with the other.

“This is CHEATING, Luche!” Libertus shouted.

“Luche didn’t say we couldn’t use magic.”

"LUCHE-"

“She’s right; I didn’t.  And it's not as if Protect isn't magic too.” Luche shrugged, popping open a can of soda open and taking a long drink.   At the trajectory those two were going, they would inevitably intersect with Tredd and Nyx.   

“Titan's balls, Pelna what did you DO?”

“Do I look like the Oracle to you?” Pelna muttered from his perch, safely tucked away from hellfire and observing Axis and Sonitus who were, unsurprisingly, working together. Axis was on the ground, so well camouflaged by leaves and dirt that Pelna would have missed him had he not seen the latter sending  _Hold_ and then _Listen_ signals overhead to Sonitus.

_What are you two up to…_

“We both know that Galdin’s wasted on your workaholic ass!” Tredd yelled, frustration beginning to build as Nyx darted in a zig-zag ahead of him, dodging every single shot.

“I don’t care about Galdin; I just—” he skidded under a low-lying branch to a slide, twisted onto his stomach to face him, and returned fire— “want to make sure YOU don’t get to go either!”

Tredd rolled out of the way, laughing. “Whatever you say, PINKY!”

“Same color you’ll blush when I wipe the floor with you!” Nyx shot back. They burst into a clearing—right within Pelna’s range, Luche noted with a sigh—and were promptly greeted by a hailstorm of red pellets to the chest.

The fighting ceased immediately. Tredd swore, kicking at the dirt.

Nyx scowled at the treetops. “Seriously?”

On the other end of the line Pelna's laughter was quickly cut of by the sound of a scuffle, followed by a series of heavy thuds and scattered gunfire that seemed to get closer and closer.  Nyx and Tredd stepped back just as an overhead branch snapped in half, Sonitus landing with a dull thud in the space they'd been standing just a few seconds earlier, bright orange paint all over his front.  Moments later Axis followed, landing a little more gracefully--which is to say he didn't land on his face--on his ass right beside him.  The blotch of paint on his chest plate was white--exactly like the business end of Sonitus' rifle.

"Cancelled each other out, huh." said Tredd with a chuckle. He helped them both up. "Almost had him?"

"Almost." muttered Sonitus, measuring with a finger to show how much.

" _WANKER_ ," Axis signed angrily up to the trees.  

"Revenge team up?" suggested Nyx.  The three other glaives looked at him cynically. "What?"

An explosion from the east knocked them all off their feet, Libertus crash landing right into Nyx. A few seconds later Crowe appeared, bits of twig and leaf in her hair, cackling somewhat maniacally before she nailed him right where the sun didn't shine.  She turned and blocked the pellets coming for her head with a shield, and the rest of the guys found themselves splattered in the red, sticky aftermath. 

" _Camping_ , Pelna? _Really_?" She raised both hands and the others had to cover their ears as a powerful gust of wind went blustering through the arena. 

Luche had his eyes on his laptop in the time it took for her to flush Pelna out, but when he looked up again, curious as to why the wind had suddenly died, Crowe had Pelna pinned to the ground, her rifle pressed against Pelna's jugular while the latter's was squished against her stomach.  They were both glaring at each other.

"Erm...tie?" suggested Libertus tentatively.

"No tie. I got four." said Pelna.

"So? I got _you_." Crowe smirked, rifle pressing harder.  

"No,  _I_ got you."  

"And _I_ lied about Galdin." Luche added.  On his laptop screen the following prompt had appeared:

**MA-X SERAPH-0 NOW ONLINE.**

**DEPLOY?**

Luche hit ' **Y'.** He cleared his throat.

"Anyway, now that you're all warmed up--"

"I knew it!  I _knew_ it was too good to be true!" Libertus exclaimed. 

Hearing them, the absurdity of the fact that they were two adults getting riled up about winning a paintball game finally occurred to Pelna and there was no stifling the laughter that bubbled up and spilled over. He  draped a hand over his eyes, rifle forgotten in the grass.  After a while Crowe tossed her gun aside with a snort and rolled off Pelna to lie beside him with a sigh. 

"So much for that." she muttered.  Pelna touched her arm.

"Hey. About this morning--"

She stopped him with an elbow to his ribs. "You can explain over a drink."

"Heh. Deal.  And for the record: I won." 

Axis raised an eyebrow at the two, then looked around to see if anyone else was seeing what he was seeing, but Sonitus was already lying on his stomach and chatting to someone on his phone, and the other three were more preoccupied with establishing a lynch squad.   

"Oh please," Luche scoffed. "You think if I had that kind of money lying around I'd waste it on you guys?  Oh, and Furia and Ulric are on scrub duty for a month."

"Okay."  Tredd tossed away his rifle and pulled out a dagger. " _Now_ I'm going to kill him."

"Not if I get to him first." said Nyx.

"Correction: Not if SERAPH gets to you first." said Luche.  As if on cue, a giant bipedal robot with six wings dropped in from the sky to land with an earth-shaking THUD in front of them, and the rainforest dissipated into a desert landscape with very few places to hide. 

_" **Armed hostiles detected.  Initiating Combat Protocol."**_

"WHAT THE F--"

"Happy Bonding!"

**Author's Note:**

> tbc


End file.
